A Christmas Miracle
by This Is My Escape
Summary: Elena continues to use the witchy herbs until the holiday season. She waits for Damon to appear. When he does, his touching feels real. Is it an allusion? Is it real? - Written for BadBoysAreBest for the annual DE Author-to-Author Fic Exchange. Rated M for sexy times.


**AN: Hello, friends. It's that time of the year! DE's Author-to-Author Fic Exchange has begun, and I've chosen a prompt from one of the best/original DE writers out there, Sar (BadBoysAreBest). **

**Her prompt was this: Elena never gets caught by Caroline doing the witchy herbs. She continues to use them until the holiday season. Elena spends Christmas alone without any of her friends. She waits for Damon to appear. When he does, his touching feels real. Is it an allusion? Is it real? Is it a Christmas miracle? Make this as fluffy or as dark as you want. Bonus points if there is slow dancing and lamp smashing involved.**

**Read and enjoy, and please review! ~Kate**

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><p>There's been a few close calls, but Elena never gets caught by Caroline using Luke's herbs. She knows what she would say about her method of moving on from Damon. "That isn't moving on, Elena, that's pressing pause."<p>

Well, whatever, because it's been doing the job just fine so far.

But she hasn't been caught, so she's going to continue to press pause until the end of time because there's no world for her without Damon Salvatore.

It's snowing outside, but the cold doesn't affect her like it would if she was still human. Then again, maybe it does and she's just gone numb. Part of her is saddened because Christmas used to be her favorite time of the year, and last year she never could have imagined that it would be her and Damon's first and last one together.

She sets the mortar and pestle down on his dresser and pours the witchy herbs into the bowl, picking up the pestle and using it to grind and mash all of her frustration and devastation into dust that she'll use to make tea that'll make her late love appear. She flashes into the kitchen to make that special tea (grateful that Stefan is off still trying to make amends with her best friend), and returns to Damon's bedroom minutes later. As she lifts the tiny bowl to her lips, she pauses after hearing the sound of a door shutting, but she ignores it, following through with her action and consuming the disgusting, but helpful concoction.

Another strange sound, but it's so quiet if she was human she'd have missed it, and it's close so she turns around and sees _him_ leaning against the doorway, staring at her with a look that he'd always saved for her and her alone.

"Merry Christmas, Damon."

One of his perfectly sculptured brows lifts into the air, a signature smirk graces his lips and those ocean eyes that have always threatened to drown her lock onto hers. "Drinking the good stuff without me?"

She bites her lip. This habit of hers is not one of her proudest moments, but desperate times…

Without Damon, desperate times occur frequently. "You know this is the only way I can see you."

"Ah," he says, that look in his eyes, the one full of wonder, shifting into something of concern. "I don't though. How long have you been into this shtick?"

"Come on, you know I've used this stuff for months."

That something of concern in his eyes then morphs into something of pain. "Since I left you. Elena, you haven't moved on at all."

She gulps, and wonders if this Damon (this part of her subconscious) is finally calling her out on her pause method, and she starts to panic because if she can't use the herbs to bring him back to her, if her mind will no longer grant her that, then there's only one other option and it's one that would force Caroline into having not one, but zero best friends, her brother into having not one, but zero family members left. Ric's still around, but that isn't the same thing even though she wishes it were enough. She wishes she could join Damon into the hereafter, but even though she's grief-stricken and even though with every breath she takes she feels deader inside, she's still not selfish enough to do that to her family.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Damon! I tried! I tried mourning you like a normal human being. I tried to phase through the five stages of loss like a normal human being. I tried going to bed without feeling like I was suffocating, and waking up in the morning without feeling like I was going to die because you weren't there beside me. And then you know what happened?" she asks, her voice shaky as she takes a tentative step toward him. "I remembered I'm not normal, _ or_ a human being, so I did what I had to do to make sure I see you as often as I can, I see you five times a week and the only reason it's not seven times is because Caroline would get suspicious if I suddenly called off girls' night."

He makes a face and she laughs shortly.

"I'm tempted to call it off anyway, we've only recently – sort of – tried to carry on like we used to before…" she shakes her head and then rakes a hand through her hair. "I couldn't care less about that right now though, and you know why?" Another step closer to him. "Because you're here. It's the holidays, Damon, and I want to spend them with you. Does it really matter how you're standing here in front me? Just that you are and that we're together?"

She watches his jaw work under his skin, and he clears his throat. "Follow me."

And then he turns around, leaving her alone in his bedroom, so she does as he says and follows behind him until they're in the parlor and he's standing in front of the fireplace…that is currently burning two logs with gorgeous flames viciously licking at the sides of the firebox.

Two logs that were originally setting in front of the hearth when she got home.

That fireplace was not burning anything when she got home.

Her brows trim together. "How…"

"It's been a while since we've shared a dance in front of this bad boy, don't you think?" he asks, holding out his hand as he sends her a smile that makes her knees weak.

Herbs-induced Damon has never tried to dance with her before. He's held her while she's cried, wrapped his fingers around hers when she needed strength, but she craves, absolutely _craves _his touch now. If even for a short while, because she's starting to feel the herbs' affects beginning to wane and she knows it won't be much longer before she's sober and he's gone.

She slides her hand into his and she almost yanks it away, but he tightens his grip. A broken sobs escapes her because out of all those times they've held each other during the last six painful months of being apart, she's never felt him the way he feels now:

Warm.

Solid.

Real.

A quiet gasp slips past her lips and just like that the slow inhales and exhales of her lungs cease.

"Merry Christmas, Elena." His voice is a soft whisper as he closes the distance between them, never letting go of her hand, but lifting it into the air and wrapping his other around her waist, beginning to sway back and forth. A tear slips down her cheek. She doesn't understand. Maybe she's overdosing. Vampires can do a lot of things, but can they overdose? "Elena…" he says, gently wiping a tear from her eye, "I'll explain everything, but I need you to breathe, baby."

She whimpers, hearing his voice, _really_ hearing his voice for the first time in almost a year. "I don't understand how you're here right now."

"Breathe first, explanation later."

"I'm not going to pass out, Damon," she chides tearfully, pulling out of his hold and backing away from him.

He reaches for her, but then drops his arm, seeming to understand her need for space. It's a lot at once and she's grateful to him granting her that. "No, you're just going to send yourself into a tizzy – while entertaining, it's not your best look." Her eyes snap to his and he shrugs. "Your best look is when you're smiling, sunshine, and I gather you haven't done a lot of that lately. But I'm back and hoping to rectify that."

"Back?"

He smirks. "Yup."

A flicker of hope ignites inside her. "Which means?"

"It means exactly that, I'm back. For good." He winks at her. "Sorry to disapp-oof." She collides into him, her arms threatening to strangle him she's clinging onto him so tight. His arms instantly wind around hers and she sobs, her face buried in his neck, smelling him in through each heave. Leather and Bourbon and he smells exactly the same.

"I've missed you so much," she mumbles against his skin, and he chuckles, the sound filing her with a completeness she hasn't felt in far too long. She pulls away, certain what little makeup she'd been wearing is now smeared across her face, but not finding it in herself to care. "Tell me. I want to know everything."

He presses a kiss to her forehead, her nose, her lips, and then closes his eyes with a sigh, nodding. "I know you do. And you will, but it's a helluva long story and I've really," another kiss to her mouth, "really," his fingers dance across the hem of her shirt that causes a swarm of butterflies to take flight inside her, "missed you." His eyes and fingers are caressing her abdomen, his index and middle fingers dipping into the waistline of her jeans as his thumb rubs over the metal snap.

Ten seconds of teasing, and she's slamming him against the wall, accidentally sending another lamp flying off a side-table and to its fate of being in a million pieces. "Wait a minute – wait a minute –" he grunts as her hand slides into his jeans and wraps around him with a firm gentleness. "Baby bro – where's he at –"

"Trying to make it up to Caroline," she says, rubbing her thumb over his head and smiling at the way his eyes roll to the back of his head. "Long story short, we're alone."

"My _god,_ Elena."

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he's using his vampire speed to flash them back into his bedroom, closing the door so fast she missed it when she blinked and she's suddenly on her back, being pressed into the mattress as his lips meet one of her nipples, swirling his tongue around the peak. She bites her lip and curses a breathy, "Jesus."

"I hear it's his birthday, watch the language," he scolds playfully, slowly moving down her body and pressing kiss after kiss to her skin until he reaches the part of her that's been neglected for months. As soon as his tongue touches, the stirrings in her core begin, growing more violent until the gentle nip of his teeth send her into the stars.

When her eyes finally open and her breathing evens out, she finds him hovering over her, each hand pressed to either side of her head and gazing at her with shiny eyes when he settles in between her legs. "I am so in love with you."

She touches the side of his face, grinning when he leans into it. "I love you too, Damon."

Watching his Adam's apple bob up and down, she moans as he pushes into her. "Never forgot how good you feel, but damn do you feel better than I remember." He starts moving and she braces herself, meeting him thrust for thrust as their bodies become slick with sweat, making it easier for them to move with each other. "Love you," he pants, "love you, love you, love you."

She silences him with a kiss, until she cries out when his thumb dances across her clit, never letting up until she reaches her second climax of the night, her inner contracting inner walls causing him to go off with her.

After reacquainting themselves with each other in the most intimate way, several times, her cheek is resting against his bare chest, his fingers ghosting up and down her spine, and each of them basking in the afterglow.

"So," she says as his hand rests on her naked bottom. "Think I can get that explanation now?"

"Baby, after what you did for me ten minutes ago, you can get whatever the hell you want." She laughs and he grins, pressing a kiss to her damp temple. "Call it a Christmas Miracle."

She pushes herself up to lean on her elbow to glare at him. "You know I don't believe that, right?"

"I'd say there was something wrong if you did."

His teasing, his sass and his smirk are things she'd thought she'd never see from him again. Clearly she was wrong, and his response is something she'll accept for now. She has him back. Her world is back on its axis, spinning just as it should with her love in her arms and her future brighter than she's ever expected it to be, because she'll get to live it with him…just as they've always been destined to.

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you so much for reading &amp; please review. Merry Christmas &amp; Happy Holidays, everyone! ~Kate <strong>


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